


nous apprendrons par cœur la démesure

by moorehawke



Category: 1789 - バスティーユの恋人たち | 1789: Les Amants de la Bastille - Takarazuka Revue, 1789: Les Amants de la Bastille - Various Composers/Attia & Chouquet
Genre: .....dont look at me, Fluff, Gen, The Author Does Not Understand The Geography Of Paris, seriously they walk from the bastille to versailles in like an hour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 22:44:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20317246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moorehawke/pseuds/moorehawke
Summary: Ronan invites Lazare to dinner.





	nous apprendrons par cœur la démesure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WildandWhirling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WildandWhirling/gifts).

> happy birthday rachel you motherfucker

“Come round for dinner.”

Ronan had said it late one afternoon, while Lazare was in the middle of reading a stack of legislation, and it had taken his brain a minute or so to muster up the processing space to respond.

_“What?”_

“C’mon, it’ll be fun.” Ronan was lying upside down on a chaise lounge, grinning at him. He looked ridiculous with his hair messed up by the switch in gravity.

“Tonight? I’ve got work.”

“Tomorrow night then.”

“Society ball.”

“Sunday.”

“Evening mass.”

“Okay, now I know you’re just trying to avoid it.”

Lazare sighed and put his pen down. Ronan seemed to take that as a sign of encouragement and ploughed on. “My sister’s an amazing cook. We’ll do a roast goose. Roast goose and leek. Roast goose and leek and some of Marat’s wine.”

“Why would I want to drink the same wine as a revolutionary-”

“Why _wouldn’t _you want to deprive a revolutionary publisher of his favourite wine?”

Hmmm. Touché.

There was a beat of silence. “Fine,” Lazare said eventually. “You can expect me there at seven.”

“Great!”

…Where _was _‘there’, anyway?

—————

The Mazurier ‘estate’ turned out to be a tiny apartment above a bakery. Lazare skirted through alleys and shops, following the annoyingly vague instructions Ronan had left in his chicken-scratch handwriting and ignoring the odd looks the locals threw his way. He made it right on time and knocked carefully on the door.

“Just a minute!” A voice called, and then he heard the sound of a latch clicking. The door swung open to reveal a woman, perhaps a couple of years younger than Ronan. There was an indecipherable look on her face.

“Mademoiselle Mazurier?” Lazare asked, and gave a short bow when she nodded. “Lazare de Peyrol.”

“Oh, _you’re_ him.” She looked appraisingly over him, a hard glint to her eyes. “You’re shorter up close.” While Lazare searched for an answer to that, she swung the door further open and retreated back into the space. “Come on in, then.”

The apartment was cramped, but homey. When the Bastille was still standing it would have spent most of the day in its shadow, but now the single south-facing window looked like it got enough sun to warm the space without a fire. All the better, because there wasn’t a fireplace. Off to one side was a curtain that Lazare assumed hid a bedspace, and to the other was a battered desk. In the centre of the room, Ronan was setting cutlery at a small dining table. His face lit up when he saw Lazare. “You came!” He said, grinning. “I wasn’t sure you would.”

“Mass finished early today,” Lazare deadpanned.

“You’ve met my sister Solène,” Ronan said.

Solène gave a mock curtsy. “Charmed.” Lazare nodded.

“Well then.” Ronan clasped his hands together. “Let’s eat!”

—————

“I guess it wouldn’t be what you’re used to,” Ronan said as he laid the food down on the table. Three plates, each with a generous serving of leek, and enough meat to tide him over. “Especially not at your estate. But we make do. There’s a big communal oven downstairs, we share with all the families on this block.”

_“Usually_ we eat down there too,” Solène added, “but Ronan thought that might not be to your taste.” Lazare could hear the sound of drunken singing starting to rise up from the floor below. He silently agreed with Ronan.

He tried some of Marat’s wine. Admittedly, it was quite good, though perhaps a bit sweet for his tastes. Ronan swore by it. “The greatest stuff in Paris to get drunk on, assuming you don’t have access to rum.”

“And if you do?”

“Then the rum wins, hands down!”

He tried to bring Solène into the conversation too, but she seemed hell-bent on saying just the right thing to throw him off balance. When he asked her if she had been in Paris long, she replied primly with “I’m a prostitute.” Ronan guffawed at Lazare’s stunned silence. He was definitely the drunkest of the three.

“Stop bullying him, sis,” he said between giggles. “He’s too proper, banter’ll just break him.”

“Oh, I think the breaking’s more your area of expertise than mine.” Lazare refused to even remotely speculate on what that might have meant. He focused very intently on the piece of leek on his fork.

The conversation slipped sideways into childhood stories, and now it was Ronan’s turn to be humiliated.

“So then he-” Solene paused to snort into her wine- “-he _grabs it.”_

_“No.”_

“Yes!” She cackled.

“A full bunch of stinging nettles-”

“Just puts his whole hand in it, like-” she mimed five-year-old Ronan’s amazement at the secret stash of ‘mint’ he’d supposedly found, reaching her hand out over the table, fingers splayed. “He couldn’t hold a pen for a week!”

“It’s not _that_ funny,” Ronan grumbled into a bread roll.

“On the contrary, it’s _hilarious.” _Lazare countered.

“Yeah? You know what else is hilarious?” Ronan’s eyes gained a dangerous glint. “That time you-”

“I don’t think your sister needs to hear about that.”

_“In Marat’s workshop, no less-”_

“We are not having this conversation.”

“Are you sure we aren’t? Because the gear on the press is still a bit bent, Marat’s been asking about it-”

_“Ronan.”_

Solène was still cackling as she reached to top up her glass.

—————

Eventually the food was gone, and the wine bottle sat empty on the table. The conversation slowed to a crawl, a lazy, companionable thing.

“You know,” Solène said, “for an aristocratic asshole, you’re not that bad, Lazare de Peyrol.”

“Thank you kindly.”

“It’s getting late, though. You should probably get out of here before the nightlife starts up for real.” Ronan struggled to his feet. “Come on, I’ll walk you back to Versailles.”

“I’m perfectly capable of getting there myself.”

“The cool air’ll help me avoid a hangover. Please.”

Lazare shrugged, got up, and dusted his coat off. He tried to give Solène another bow but she was having none of it, and surged forward to wrap him up in a hug. He stood stiffly, unsure, until she let go. “Come back again soon.” She grinned.

Outside, the night air was starting to gain a chilled bite. They walked half in companionable silence (Lazare) and half in absent monologue (Ronan), stumbling into one another every now and again where the uneven cobblestones threw them off balance. Perhaps they were a little drunker than previously thought.

Lazare looked at Ronan. His eyes were half closed, sleepy in the dim glow of lit fires hidden behind windows. A stupid grin had fixed itself on his face as he talked.

“It’s like, what’s it even all _for, _if we can’t get the parliament to work? And how do we do that in the first place, when it’s just us workers? How do we even get the aristocrats to pay attention to us?”

“The peasants are revolting,” Laz mused.

“Huh?”

“A joke from court. A guard runs up to a general and shouts ‘general, the peasants are revolting!’. The general replies ‘yes’.”

It took Ronan a second to process this, and then he responded by letting his feet run him into Lazare’s shoulder, tipping him off balance for a second until he could get his legs under himself again. “I shower,” he mumbled into the fabric of Laz’s coat.

“That you do.”

“Perfume, too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Lavender. Smell my hair.”

Laz did. It smelled mostly of ink and sawdust - quintessential Ronan smells - but there was a floral hint to it too. “See?” Ronan said. His face was still leaned against Laz’s sleeve. He hummed in agreement.

All too soon they found themselves in front of Laz’s Versailles residence. The servants had long since gone to bed, but there was a light left on by the door. Lazare opened it.

“Guess this is where I leave you.” Ronan unpeeled himself from his coat and started to step away. “Thanks for the dinner. I know it wasn’t to your standards, but Solène really wanted to meet you.” He laughed a bit. “She gets pretty protective about who I… spend my time with.” Lazare remembered the steely glint in her eyes when she’d first opened the door and didn’t doubt it. “Goodnight.” Ronan turned to leave, back towards the gloom of the uptown streets, and the night was cold, and the stars were bright, and-

“Would you like to come in?”

Ronan stopped, standing on the flagstones are the edge of the footpath. He grinned, a wild, joyful thing.

“Sure.”


End file.
